velvet_fog:John McCain circa 2000 would have been a great president. Ya know - the truly moderate guy who spoke out against the "agents of intolerance" on the far right and the far left. John McCain circa 2008 was so scared of losing again that he sold out to the far right and lost his credibility.

2000 & 2004 McCain would have been better as POTUS than the alternative but he apparently had a black baby. Ironically losing in 2008 to someone with two black babies.

Lost Thought 00:jrw8778: Average age of Americans: about 36 years old.Average age of American congressperson: 57 years old.

Why do we elect rich old people?

Because they've spent the time necessary to prove themselves to be effective leaders through business success and public service ventures. Don't you want our best, brightest, and most successful people serving in the leadership?

Come now. If you put all that work in, you will be the person buying the politicians not wasting time being one.

If I was John McCain, I would do one thing before he retires, champion the Rockefeller Republican platform. While it will never take hold, he will at least save his legacy from being "The Guy Who Put Palin on the Ticket"

The depressing part of McCain is that, once he was seen as a viable Republican candidate, the GOP derp wagon saddled him with Palin, a bunch of "advisors" determined to appeal to the GOP's LCD, and his campaign went south in a big way (pun intended.)

When McCain's Presidential campaign became "The Sarah Palin Show", well, it was over.

My favorite '00 McCain moment was during one of the primary debates, when W. replied to the question, "If you were elected president, what is the first thing you'd do?" with "I'd pray to God." and McCain dead-panned, "So would we."

Lost Thought 00:jrw8778: Average age of Americans: about 36 years old.Average age of American congressperson: 57 years old.

Why do we elect rich old people?

Because they've spent the time necessary to prove themselves to be effective leaders through business success and public service ventures. Don't you want our best, brightest, and most successful people serving in the leadership?

Money should have nothing to do with it though. Don't you also want some people who were not successful, to give the perspective of someone who worked their ass off and got screwed by the system we have in place?

Either way, defining success as money is silly. If you look up how Rmoney made his fortune, he's kinda a dick. He has a lot of money, but I wouldn't consider what he or his company did a "success." Unless you define success as making a shiat ton of money in any way possible that is.

My favorite '00 McCain moment was during one of the primary debates, when W. replied to the question, "If you were elected president, what is the first thing you'd do?" with "I'd pray to God." and McCain dead-panned, "So would we."

My favorite McCain debate moment. Taken during a response by another debater.

Outrageous Muff:If I was John McCain, I would do one thing before he retires, champion the Rockefeller Republican platform. While it will never take hold, he will at least save his legacy from being "The Guy Who Put Palin on the Ticket"

They are and they aren't. The Democrats certainly would like the Republicans to keep putting their feet in their mouth, but no one has tricked Rick Santorum in persisting in coming up with new ways to take us back to the 1950s. No one has tricked all of these Republican state legislators into proposing that we rape pregnant women and treat them like cattle. Something about Santorum's candidacy has brought out all the reactionary woman-hating loonies, and the Democrats can't take credit for that.

They, wisely, are saying very little. The more the GOP wages the war on women, the more campaign ads write themselves for the democrats.

If the rest of the year goes like this, it will be an easy win for them in November.

I really don't want people to start thinking that, to be honest. Because thinking an easy win against batsh*t crazy politicians leads to less people actually voting on election day. The loonies on the Republican side are already whipped into a massive frenzy of fear, insecurity, and intolerance. And they will vote. Misogynists will vote, racists will vote, people who are scared of the strawman of death panels will vote, the NRA is trying to instill fear into their members about the Dems taking guns away and you know they'll vote, pro-lifers will vote, and religious moral absolutists will vote. And almost all of them will be voting for the Republican. And there are a surprising amount of all of them, as these past few months have shown.

Obama is a pretty good centrist leader. He could stand to improve in several important ways, but overall he is the best candidate for the job who is currently running. A win for him will come from people being very concerned about what life would be like under a Romney or Santorum presidency, and if people get it in their heads that either of those is very likely to happen, they might be less in ...

Yeah, I cringe every time I hear Democrats say or imply that November will be an easy win for Obama, precisely for the reason you stated. Any discomfort Republicans have with their nominee will be FAR outweighed by their sheer hatred for Obama. Mark my word, they WILL come out and vote in droves, just like they always have done over issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Liberals/Democrats, on the other hand, are notoriously much harder to motivate in general, and the LAST thing they need to be told is that their guy is going to win no matter what. If Obama loses this election, we'll know who to blame, and it won't be Republican voters . . .

I see '00 McCain is back. It's sad that he's such a sellout, he could have been a good President had his party not gone off the rails and forced him to turn batshiat insane in exchange for votes. You do it to yourselves GOP.

DjangoStonereaver:Outrageous Muff: If I was John McCain, I would do one thing before he retires, champion the Rockefeller Republican platform. While it will never take hold, he will at least save his legacy from being "The Guy Who Put Palin on the Ticket"

Its far too late for him to salvage his legacy.

Not once the republicans start rewriting the history books to their "truth".

He will be the patriot who was cheated out of the job by the illegal Muslim immigrant's lies and propaganda.

FormlessOne:The depressing part of McCain is that, once he was seen as a viable Republican candidate, the GOP derp wagon saddled him with Palin, a bunch of "advisors" determined to appeal to the GOP's LCD, and his campaign went south in a big way (pun intended.)

When McCain's Presidential campaign became "The Sarah Palin Show", well, it was over.

Nah, McCain didn't have Palin forced on him. At the time, she was on my short list of possible VP candidates, due to her gender (the thinking was that you could pick up Hillary voters if you picked a woman for VP) and 80% approval rating in Alaska (which is insanely, ridiculously high). She was also a "mavericky" pick, which appealed to McCain specifically. I believe Game Change is mostly accurate here in how this went down.

But I'm just some guy on the internet. McCain's problem was that his campaign didn't properly vet her to find out she was simply ignorant on foreign policy and most other topics. That's the type of thing a full, proper vetting finds out.

They are and they aren't. The Democrats certainly would like the Republicans to keep putting their feet in their mouth, but no one has tricked Rick Santorum in persisting in coming up with new ways to take us back to the 1950s. No one has tricked all of these Republican state legislators into proposing that we rape pregnant women and treat them like cattle. Something about Santorum's candidacy has brought out all the reactionary woman-hating loonies, and the Democrats can't take credit for that.

They, wisely, are saying very little. The more the GOP wages the war on women, the more campaign ads write themselves for the democrats.

If the rest of the year goes like this, it will be an easy win for them in November.

I really don't want people to start thinking that, to be honest. Because thinking an easy win against batsh*t crazy politicians leads to less people actually voting on election day. The loonies on the Republican side are already whipped into a massive frenzy of fear, insecurity, and intolerance. And they will vote. Misogynists will vote, racists will vote, people who are scared of the strawman of death panels will vote, the NRA is trying to instill fear into their members about the Dems taking guns away and you know they'll vote, pro-lifers will vote, and religious moral absolutists will vote. And almost all of them will be voting for the Republican. And there are a surprising amount of all of them, as these past few months have shown.

Obama is a pretty good centrist leader. He could stand to improve in several important ways, but overall he is the best candidate for the job who is currently running. A win for him will come from people being very concerned about what life would be like under a Romney or Santorum presidency, and if people get it in their heads that either of those is very likely to happen, they might be l ...

I keep saying that Obama needs to run modified ads from Johnson's 1964 campaign. No, not the one with the nuke in it, but that one did have the same tag line that all the other ads had:

"Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

That was the theme. Johnson was worried about complacency resulting in low turn out amoungst Democrats. That should be what Obama needs to worry about this time.

Of course, Romney is no Goldwater in terms of "scary" (although Santorum certainly is).

Yes. The idea that Palin lost the election for the Republicans in 2008 is ludicrous. It was lost on the legacy of Bush. Fear of another Bush was enormous, even before Palin was selected and played a role in rallying Democratic and moderate voters.

SunsetLament:Every liberal in America loves John McCain until he's running for president against the least experienced major party candidate in the history of modern Presidential politics.

And that lack of experience really did hurt us, too. Remember, during the nuclear warring of 2008-2009, the mutated giant scorpions' rise to power in Nevada, followed by their slaughter and defeat at the hands of Gabrielle Giffords (at a price)?

The country's been a shiathole for the entirety of his presidency ... and consistently getting worse. The FUBARed health care system he put in place hasn't even begun operating yet. You must be one of those "flat earthers" who are in denial.

Sorry John, too late. I really respected you in the early 2000's, you were the first Senator(Republican OR Democrat) to officially call for an investigation into the Iraq war "Intelligence" mess. You actually called torture torture and weren't afraid to call out your fellow Republican on the deal. You had integrity and even when I disagreed with you, I could at least respect you, knowing that you were standing up for what YOU believed in.

Then you decided to run for President, and turned into a neo-con dickhead, making a 180 degree turn overnight. I lost ALL respect for you when you let Caribou Barbie up on the campaign bus. I don't think I can respect you now, seeing you flip flop that badly, although you are once again the only one speaking real common sense. Your fault, now you have to live with it.

Only other Republican that I've been able to stomach was Huntsman, and we all saw how well he was treated. Why do Republicans hate the voice of reason anyway? As son as one of their kind that pops up and actually LISTENS to the people, he gets tarred and feathered, drug out into the town square and let to bake in the noonday sun.

SunsetLament:The country's been a shiathole for the entirety of his presidency ... and consistently getting worse. The FUBARed health care system he put in place hasn't even begun operating yet. You must be one of those "flat earthers" who are in denial.

"McCain's staunch opposition to the contraception measure might be surprising to some, considering that he recently voted for Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt's similar amendment, calling for employers to deny contraception coverage to women for religious or moral reasons."

The country's been a shiathole for the entirety of his presidency ... and consistently getting worse. The FUBARed health care system he put in place hasn't even begun operating yet. You must be one of those "flat earthers" who are in denial.

I didn't know they had internet in the FEMA concentration camps. Especially since the hyper-inflation killed all US businesses and Fartbongo took all your guns and aborted your babies. Although I'm not sure how they keep you in those camps since DADT was repealed and completely destroyed our military. Is it SOROS' personal army?

The country's been a shiathole for the entirety of his presidency ... and consistently getting worse. The FUBARed health care system he put in place hasn't even begun operating yet. You must be one of those "flat earthers" who are in denial.

I didn't know they had internet in the FEMA concentration camps. Especially since the hyper-inflation killed all US businesses and Fartbongo took all your guns and aborted your babies. Although I'm not sure how they keep you in those camps since DADT was repealed and completely destroyed our military. Is it SOROS' personal army?

Sonic Overlord Richtor Ostentious Soros is not pleased to hear you take his name in vain.

"I think we have to fix that," he said. "There's a perception out there because of the way that this whole contraception issue played out ... We need to get off of that issue. In my view, I think we ought to respect the right of women to make choices in their lives and make that clear and to get back onto what the American people really care about -- jobs and the economy."

TRANSLATION:

We need to fix this "perception". Not the actual issue. The perception. We're not going to stop being chauvinistic pigs. What did you expect?

SunsetLament:Every liberal in America loves John McCain until he's running for president against the least experienced major party candidate in the history of modern Presidential politics.

George Bush and Cheney had the MOST administrative and corporate experience in the history of modern presidential politics.

And how did that work out?

Also, bringing up the experience argument when Obama is a relatively popular incumbent going up against a pair of ignorant jackholes who couldn't be brought up to speed if you gave them two terms is particularly hilarious.

quatchi:Also, bringing up the experience argument when Obama is a relatively popular incumbent going up against a pair of ignorant jackholes who couldn't be brought up to speed if you gave them two terms is particularly hilarious..